The Bicycle and the Post Box

Today C and I went for a bike ride. My new bike arrived last week in a big box and we assembled it but had trouble with the brake tension and so when we I left the house today the brakes worked, but soon afterward - nothing! This would have been fine if I could touch the ground to stop - but my legs are too short! It was pretty scary to ride with no brakes and so I ended up walking it into the city and we stopped at the big old post box outside city park to post a letter to Lauren. The pretty pink bike is now being looked after by some nice men who fix bikes until Tuesday. Hopefully she doesn't cost me a small fortune. It will be nice to at least have everything properly adjusted. When I was able to ride it today, it was such a wonderful ride. Launceston is full of bike paths and I can't wait to explore them.

10 Quick Mail Related Links

✍ Trevor Dickinson from my hometown is drawing 100 Newcastle mailboxes.


✍ Just Noey has a cute range of 'Post a Plates' at her Etsy, mail good enough to eat off! (via Milly)


✍ Have you discovered the wonders of Bad Postcards? It is a treasure trove of slightly unfortunate vintage American postal items.


✍ Map Envelope lets you print out a template for an envelope that is lined with your Google Maps location.

✍ Ever wanted to tweet by snail mail? Similarly, Dawdlr asks you to send them a postcard telling them "what are you doing, you know, more generally?".


✍ How would one Google without the internet? How about Snail Mail Google? Mail away your search and see if they write back.


✍ An oldie but a goodie - the ol' Postcarden - in Botanical, Allotment, City and Football varieties. It arrives as a card and you transform it into a tiny garden.


✍ I was never a Mr Bean fan as a kid, but this video of Mr Bean trying to post a letter did make me smile.

✍ My grandma makes hand-made quilted fabric postcards - though mine will never live up to her glory I'm thinking about trying my hand at it, I found a bit of a how-to here.


✍ Nutre Jewellers make a collection of wooden rings that you send as postcards and then assemble. Cute! Likewise, you can Build Your Own New York with constructible NY building postcards.

Milly's Journal

Milly aka Laura aka Make Do & Mend was kind enough to host a travelling journal and I am a participant. The theme is 'What I Did Today' and each participant decorates a couple of pages detailing what happened on the day the journal reached them. So far the journal has only ventured from Laura in the UK to Brodie in Melbourne and then to me and I will be sending it onward to Sharni in Victoria. At the very end Laura will post up pictures of everyone's pages. The majority of my art making tools are in storage, but it was kind of fun being limited for tools. Here are the pages I decorated;



The mail themed travelling journal I hosted back in November is about a third of the way through its 20 participants, hopefully it makes it back one day. Perhaps it's time to start another!

Mix Share Swap

^ Using bits from Pugly Pixel and Graphics Fairy.

I've been keen to host a swap for a while and going through my music collection yesterday I decided I needed something fresh. Do you feel that way too? I thoroughly enjoyed participating in Kittycat's mix swap back in April and Swap-bot's old cd swaps and thought it might be time to share the music again.

The Mix Share Swap:
♡ You will send a mix cd to two different people, thus you will receive two mixes in return.
♡ Mixes should contain at least 10 songs and include a tracklisting.
♡ The people you send to are not necessarily the people you will receive a mix from.
♡ Mixes can have any theme you choose (ie. Songs from artists from your country, songs from your favourite movie soundtracks, songs that make you happy, your favourite acoustic songs, your favourite covers, songs with hand-claps/blistering guitar solos/tabourines, songs to drive to, songs with colours in the title, songs to go to sleep to, songs featuring place names, etc) or no theme.
♡ Decorate the packaging in whatever way takes your fancy - here is some mix cd inspiration I found today. Make sure the cd is safe and won't be easily damaged in transit.
♡ This swap is international and anyone can participate.

How to participate: Drop me an email at biancajagoe[at]gmail.com with 'Mix Share Swap' in the subject line with your;

Name:
Postal address:
Blog url: (if you have one)
+ indicate if you don't mind sending outside your country.
(you're also welcome to forward your LastFM profile or any other links to what kinds of music you dig - or you can write a few sentences about your music taste)

Sign ups will close on the Wednesday 11th of August (my ma's birthday!) and then I'll email you with your partners' details. After this you will have two weeks to mail out your mixes to your partners. Hope you're keen :)

SWAP IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED :)

Honey

^ Lawralies.


It's been a while - a mail post.


^ Mail from Jane is fabulous.


^ Sweet miss Shona sent me this pretty envelope.


^ Such a great postcard, from Linsey. This postcard totally sells Tennessee for me :D


^ Something slightly mysterious looking from Missive Maven.


^ Lovely blue from Sarah in South Aus.


^ Pretty and pink from Argentinean Jaza.


^ I ordered some of Definatalie's pretty postcards and she sent them to me in this gorgeously decorated envelope, they're 5cents each so you should probably grab a bundle!


^ Something cute from Faiza, the envelope inside this envelope was also gorgeous but I forgot to capture it.


^ A wonderful collaged postcard from Mad Madge of Can I Mail This?


^ This unassuming envelope contained a very odd assortment of things and no explanation. At first I was very confused and had no idea who it was from but I worked out it was from a friend of a friend, now I'm considering what to send back.


^ A second sweet letter from Melissa in Georgia.


^ Something wonderful and green from Delwyn in Queensland.


^ A brilliant little letter from Monica, she's had a penpal hiatus for several months so I'm very happy to be corresponding with her again.


^ A cute stamp adorned envelope from Kendra. It arrived post-damaged and in a plastic bag so I hope nothing was lost!

ALSO: These three lovely letters came to me weeks ago but were some how hidden in the depths of my camera :( Thankfully Zoë commented to ask if I'd received her letter and I realised I'd never posted it;


^ My name in sparkles and a bundle of wonderful things from Zoë. I have searched high and low and cannot find those 'Hello My Name Is' labels anywhere in Aus so I am more than happy to have received some!


^ A lovely little note from Eve with a great fruit stamp.


^ A little decorated envelope with a bow from Tessica.


^ I ordered a bundle of vinyl stickers from various Redbubble artists last week and they just arrived, aren't they gorgeous? The white space around each image isn't part of the sticker, they're all perfectly cut to shape.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8




^ I didn't get to see him before we left, but I stuck this thank you card to the front of our mailbox for our postman - hope he got it! He never did tell us his name so he will forever be the Fern Street Postman (Ps. He used to call C 'Captain').


^ A postcard of a place called 'The Nut' in Tasmania which I have never visited, for my ex-housemate back at Fern Street.


^ Belated mail for Belen.


^ Writing Blanca's name really feels like I'm misspelling my own!

And this may just be the biggest item of mail I'll ever receive;

^ It's my bicycle! I have to wait until C comes home from uni to assemble it though! Pictures will follow!

Listening: Triple J.
Consuming: Warm Milo, muesli with Greek yoghurt & honey.